


Fix or Fight

by alocalband



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7422172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alocalband/pseuds/alocalband
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dex (reluctantly) drives down to New York to check on Nursey the summer before their junior year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix or Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr [here.](http://alocalband.tumblr.com/post/145714416605/for-your-dialogue-prompt-43-or-69-for-dexnursey)

Dex knows something’s wrong when he gets a full week into summer break without hearing from Derek Nurse even once. Not a drunken text, not a stray emoji in the group chat, nothing.

It shouldn’t bother him. He doesn’t care. Except that it’s unusual for Nursey not to go out of his way to keep up with his teammates, not to go out of his way to poke at Dex in particular, and so Dex is…

Well, “worried” is too strong of a word. It’s only been a week. Nursey is probably just off gallivanting around Europe with all of his rich Andover friends and hasn’t had a sober moment to spare a single thought to the SMH or to his fellow d-man.

Which is fine. Whatever. _Dex doesn’t care._

Hell, the only reason he even notices is because their last game of the season had left him with a sprained knee from an overly aggressive check. It’s nearly healed now, but his mom forbid working on the lobster boat this summer just in case he aggravate it. He managed to pick up some coding work, just basic website stuff for a couple of local businesses, so he’s still bringing in a paycheck at least. But for the most part he’s been cooped up in the den trying to avoid babysitting duty, bored and restless.

Another week passes. Still nothing from Nursey.

Dex doesn’t want to be the one to text first. He knows he’s being childish, but it feels like a stalemate of sorts, and he _hates_ giving up ground to Nursey, no matter the circumstances.

Except that Nursey still hasn’t participated in the group chat either, and the only other person who seems to notice is Chowder.

“Do you think he’s okay?”

Dex rolls his eyes and limps over to shut his bedroom door against the cacophony of sound that are his younger siblings. “He’s fine, Chow. Why wouldn’t he be?”

“He hasn’t answered any of my calls. And he hasn’t commented on any of my Instagram posts since May.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t have service on whatever private island he’s currently lounging on.”

“But he said he was going home for the summer.”

Dex swallows. He knows that was Nursey’s plan. But it’s easier to brush aside the lack of communication if he imagines Nursey is just too busy being the kind of guy Dex hates, than if he remembers that Nursey is his _friend_. Damn it. “I’ll call him.”

“What if he doesn’t answer?”

“Then, fuck, I don’t know, Chowder. I’ll drive down and check on him. Would that make you feel better?”

He can practically hear the bright-eyed smile in Chowder’s voice. “Yes! That’d be awesome! Thanks, Dex.”

Nursey doesn’t answer Dex’s call.

“Shit,” Dex mutters, staring down at his cell and contemplating giving it another week. But then he huffs a put-upon sigh and shouts for his sister so he can wrestle his car keys away from her.

It’s a good eight hours, and way too much money blown on gas, but Dex forces himself not to think about that. He grips the steering wheel tightly with both hands and he listens to the playlist that Nursey made him for finals on repeat. None of the songs are his taste, but he knows they’re not Nursey’s taste either, which means the guy was _trying_ instead of just shoving his own interests down Dex’s throat. And the reminder of this fact keeps Dex from abandoning this insane trip and turning the car around.

He texts Bitty for Nursey’s address, because Bitty has mailed everyone on the team enough care packages over the years that he practically has them all memorized, and the response is immediate. It isn’t until Dex is finally parked and standing on the sidewalk staring up at the massive building with the fucking doorman falling asleep at his post that the nerves finally hit.

What the hell is he doing? Eight hours in a car, his leg is killing him, and he’s about to drop in unannounced on Derek Nurse in his stupidly expensive Manhattan condo. And all because Chowder asked him to?

No. That’s not fair. Dex knows himself better than that. Chowder was just the excuse he needed. He’s worried about his friend, and William Poindexter has never been able to sit back and let a situation work itself out on its own. If he sees something that requires action, his first response will always be to jump in and either fix it or fight it.

The doorman lets him up with a bored expression when he says he’s a friend of Derek’s. Obviously the guy’s heard that one often enough before.

“Dex?” Nursey blinks blearily in dull confusion when he opens the door. He looks like he just got woken up, except that it’s not even seven yet.

Dex frowns. “Were you _asleep_?”

“I…” Nursey blinks some more, trying to wake up, then leans his whole body against the door frame and rubs a hand over his face with a groan. “Fuck, I had a late night. What are you doing here?”

Of course he had a late night. Of course he’s probably just been too busy partying with his hipster friends to pay attention to his hockey teammates.

Dex grits his teeth. “You haven’t been answering anyone’s phone calls. Chow was worried.”

Nursey opens one eye to assess Dex. “ _Chowder_ was worried, huh?”

Dex feels his cheeks burn red with his anger at himself, which is about to get redirected at Nursey even if the guy didn’t actually do anything wrong. “Obviously he didn’t need to be, because _obviously_ you’ve just been too hungover to bother with your phone. I’ll let him know.”

He turns to storm off, but Nursey reaches a hand out to stop him. “Bro, I’m not hungover, alright? Just tired. I was up late because my parents are in Dubai and they can only Skype when it’s, like, four in the morning here. My internal clock’s all over the place right now.”

“Oh.” Dex tries to wrap his mind around this information, and then abruptly pauses. “Wait. Are you _alone_ here?”

“Uh, yeah, man. Whole place to myself. Parents don’t get back until September.” Nursey shrugs, but it’s a little too casual for Dex not to narrow his eyes at it.

“Dude. Derek. Did you _know_ they’d be gone all summer?”

Nursey purses his lips together tightly.

Which is all the answer Dex needs really. He sets his features into a determined expression and shoves past Nursey into the condo.

“What the hell?”

“I’ve been going stir crazy back home, and you are obviously not handling solitude very well, so looks like you just won yourself a new roommate. Congrats.”

Nursey stares at him.

Dex doesn’t back down. “Look, we’re going to be sharing the attic next year anyway. Consider this a practice run. Let’s see if we can go a week without killing each other.”

Any argument Nursey might want to make gets cut off by a yawn. “Whatever, I’m going back to bed.” He shuffles past Dex, nearly knocking into him. “Guest room’s on the left.” And then he’s gone, leaving Dex standing there in the dark.

Chowder is going to laugh so hard when he finds out about this.

Dex sends off a text with just a brief, “Nurse is fine. Fill ya in later.” Then he calls his mom and explains where he is and why Jenna is just going to have to suck it up without the car for a week. It is _his_ car, after all, even if he didn’t take it to school with him.

He plays around with the entertainment center for a few hours, and then finally goes in search of the guest room. Which, of course, is the size of his family’s living room. Dex wasn’t planning on staying over, so he doesn’t have anything that wasn’t already in his backpack. He strips down to his boxers, climbs into bed and stares at the ceiling.

It’s very… quiet. Dex very suddenly and acutely doesn’t know how Nursey lives like this. It’s like he’s the last person on earth. The walls block all sounds of the city unless you’re near a window, the bed is gigantic, the ceilings are vaulted, and Dex has never felt so completely dwarfed by his surroundings before. He’s 6 foot 2 and grew up overrun with siblings and extended family in an extremely modest house, he has never not been aware of his own size. But here he feels _small_.

It’s disconcerting.

He’s woken up at around three in the morning, and can’t figure out why until he makes his way to the kitchen for some water and spots Nursey on the couch, talking to his laptop screen.

“About three thousand words. Kind of a record, honestly,” his voice is soft and careful. He has his headphones on so Dex can’t hear the response he gets, but whatever it is makes Nursey swallow and frown.

“Right. Yeah, of course. I just thought you’d like that I was actually getting close to finishing someth–“

He gets cut off by words Dex can’t hear, but which illicit an expression on Nursey’s face that has Dex hightailing it back to the guest room before he can think too hard on why his chest now hurts.

A few hours later, the sun well up, Dex rinses with the mouthwash in the cabinet of the attached bathroom, puts on his clothes from the day before, and then heads to the kitchen for some breakfast. Or, at the very least, caffeine.

He opens the fridge to find a game of Tetris played out with takeout containers. “ _Jesus, Nursey_ ,” he mutters, and then jumps at the voice from the doorway behind him.

“To be fair, it’s not that I don’t know _how_ to cook, it’s that I tend to start fires whenever I do.”

Nursey has his arms crossed over his chest as he leans back against the wall. He looks thinner than he did during hockey season, but his biceps still bulge in his tight T-shirt and Dex’s eyes briefly catch on the tattoo wrapped around his right one.

Nursey smirks. Dex scowls and looks away, shutting the fridge door a little too forcefully. “Text Chowder before the guy has an aneurism, alright?

“Yeah, alright. I didn’t mean to freak you guys out. I just didn’t realize that much time had passed.”

“What the hell have you been doing that two weeks can go by without you noticing?”

Nursey ducks his head a little and grabs the back of his neck. It’s as vulnerable a gesture as Dex has ever witnessed from him, and he’s a little in awe of the fact that they’ve reached a point in their relationship where he’s allowed to see it. “Besides sleeping at weird hours? Uh, writing mostly. It’s stupid, but I figured all this time to myself, I should use it as an excuse to work on my book.”

“You’re writing a _book_?”

“Well. Trying to. Like I said, it’s stupid. I don’t know why I–”

“It’s not stupid.” Nursey looks up at him through his eyelashes, and Dex could swear his gaze is almost… hopeful. Dex swallows. “Me being here isn’t going to fuck with your writer shit, is it?”

Nursey laughs, his limbs loosening. Dex hadn’t even realized they’d been so tense before. “Nah, man. It’s good to see a friendly face. Come on, let’s go get breakfast. I’m buying.”

“You don’t have to–“

“Either you let me buy you breakfast, Poindexter, or I’ll show you exactly why Bitty doesn’t let me near the stove.”

Dex chuckles. “Alright, fine. Asshole.”

He worries Nursey is going to take him to someplace that will make Dex immediately feel underdressed and pissed off, but instead they end up at one of the most hipster coffee joints Dex has ever seen. It’s staffed by people covered in tattoos and piercings, and patronized by people who look like they spent more money on their jeans than Dex did on his laptop.

The coffee’s good, though, and the crepes are amazing. They sit at a table towards the front, people watching through the window, until Nursey suddenly tenses and spills coffee all over his own arm.

“Oh shit,” he whispers, while Dex uses a stack of napkins to wipe off Nursey’s arm for him. Nursey turns a slightly harried gaze on him. “Quick, act like you’re into me.”

Dex freezes. “What.”

“Just pretend to be my date.”

“Your _date?_ ” Dex likes to think that he doesn’t exactly screech the word, but it is pretty high pitched. Nursey doesn’t have time to chirp him for it before they’re suddenly joined by the two guys who just entered the place.

“Hey, Derek.” The stupidly attractive one says. The slightly less stupidly attractive one next to him nods.

“Hey, Austin. Cam.” Nursey nods back. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Was just about to ask you the same thing. You don’t call, you don’t write…” Austin smirks and then gives a pointed eyebrow raise towards Dex. “So is this the guy who hasn’t let you leave the bedroom since you’ve been back?”

Dex chokes on his water.

“Well,” Nursey says easily, “sometimes I get a bathroom break.”

Dex can feel his ears burn, and the blush starts to spread down to his cheeks at the leer this earns him from Cam.

“Well, now that you’ve finally come up for air– drinks? Friday? I’ll call in the rest of the crew.”

“Sorry, man, Friday’s date night.” Nursey winks at Dex and Dex kicks his shin under the table. “I’ll text ya, though, yeah?”

“Yeah. Good seeing you, Derek.” Austin shoots a finger gun at Dex. “Don’t make him work too hard for it, buddy. He may look like he’s got game, but he’s secretly a romantic at heart.”

“Fuck off,” Nursey rolls his eyes, and the other two laugh as they head away to the counter.

Dex stares at Nursey for a prolonged beat of silence. Then leans slowly forward and hisses, “What. Was _that_?”

Nursey, for once, has the good sense to look a little embarrassed. “They wouldn’t leave me alone, alright? They knew I was in town, and so they kept showing up unannounced, trying to get me to go out like we used to, but that’s not– That isn’t something I enjoy anymore and they couldn’t take a hint. So I finally just told them that I had someone with me and that I was, you know, _indisposed_ for the foreseeable future.”

Dex processes all of this with a still baffled expression on his face, his cheeks still burning. Without warning, Nursey leans forward and takes one of Dex’s hands in both of his. “Uh…”

“They’re looking at us. Do you mind?”

He does, but he realizes suddenly and horrifically that he minds for a completely different set of reasons than what Nursey is probably thinking. He _minds_ because he doesn’t know now if he’s ever going to forget the feeling of Derek Nurse’s thumbs lazily massaging circles into his knuckles, and he sort of doesn’t want to.

Oh fuck.

“No, it’s… fine.”

Nursey brings Dex’s hand up to his face and brushes a light kiss into his palm.

Dex’s breath hitches.

This is bad.

This is _beyond_ bad.

Nursey insists on showing Dex around the city once they’re finished eating, making it sound like Dex is doing _him_ the favor for giving him a reason to get out of the house.

But Dex’s leg and Nursey’s unusual sleep schedule don’t let them stay out for long. By noon they’re already back at the condo, sprawled across the couch with craft beer and a _Breaking Bad_ marathon, since it’s one of the only shows they can agree on.

Nursey falls asleep twenty minutes in, and Dex takes the opportunity to stare at him like a creeper and wonder at exactly what point he started to think of Derek Nurse as anything other than an extremely frustrating linemate and future roommate. They’ve come a long way since Freshman year, sure. They’re friends now, even if they both still annoy the hell out of each other. Dex cares about him, is as fiercely protective of him as he is anyone else on the team, but he’s always been more reluctant to admit that fact when it comes to Nursey than he should be.

Maybe because admitting to it would mean also admitting to the extent to which those feelings actually go.

This is certainly going to make living together a little awkward.

“You alright?” Nursey’s sleep-rough voice startles him out of his thoughts.

Dex watches Nursey slowly blink awake, yawn, and then stretch back across the arm of the couch so that his body arches up off of it. His shirt rides up to expose his abs and happy trail and the top of a tattoo on his hip, just barely peeking out of his jeans.

It isn’t until he’s already been caught that he notices Nursey’s eyes track his gaze. Nursey licks his lips and pointedly watches Dex watch him do it.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean–“ Dex starts.

“It’s cool.” The husky quality to Nursey’s voice hasn’t gone away. Instead it seems to have gotten worse.

“It’s not– I wasn’t– You shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable just because I–“

But Nursey interrupts him in a rush of words that looks like it surprises him as much as it does Dex. “ _I can’t stop thinking about your hands_.”

Dex’s eyebrows shoot up. “My hands?”

“After this morning, I… I want to hold your hand again. God, that’s so cheesy. But I want to put my mouth to your palm again. To your wrist, your knuckles…”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dex feels like he’s vibrating out of his skin. “Well I kinda want you to put your mouth on more than just my hands, if we’re being perfectly honest, Derek.”

“ _Oh thank god_ ,” Nursey breathes, and then launches himself forward.

They kiss and it’s so desperate and wild, fraught with Dex’s absolute certainty that this is the only time he’ll ever get to do this. It’s a wet, breathless, _pained_ kiss, heavy with the knowledge that they can’t have anything beyond the here and now. They _can’t_.

Dex pulls back, panting for air, a hand on Nursey’s chest to push him away. But not too far. “I can’t–”

“No, wait, I want–”

“We’re going to be _roommates_. If we start something and it doesn’t work out–”

“Then I’ll sleep in the basement with the ghosts. Or I’ll make that disgusting couch my new permanent residence. Or, hell, I’ll guilt Chowder into letting me room with him. We’ll make it work if it comes to that, but, Will, seriously, it’s _not_ going to come to that. I’ve written _poetry_ about you, man.”

Dex pauses, startled. “You have?”

Nursey nods earnestly. “And I will read you every single sappy word just as long as I get to do it when we’re in bed.”

“Oh. That’s– I mean, I haven’t, um–” Dex tries to fight the blush he feels as he glances up and away.

“We don’t have to _do_ anything. Just… Just tell me you want this too. Please. And we’ll figure everything else out as we go.”

Dex catches Nursey’s eyes determinedly. Fix or fight, right? For the first time in his life he feels like he’s about to do both at once. “I want this.”

Nursey beams at him. “ _Fuck yeah._ Now let’s make out until I fall asleep again.”

Dex laughs unabashedly, and their next kiss doesn’t hurt this time. Doesn’t feel like desperation or longing. It’s gentle and slow, playful and honest. Nursey cradles Dex’s cheek in one hand and tangles their fingers together with his other. 

By the end of the week, they definitely haven’t killed each other. 


End file.
